Moldovan authorities try to reduce prodigality of food through encouraging economic agents to donate food products

Chisinau, 14 June /MOLDPRES/ - Economic agents from Moldova are encouraged to donate food products to charity organizations of food banks. The initiative was launched, in order to help the vulnerable people and prevent the prodigality of food products. Fifty six MPs approved a draft to this effect today.  

More exactly, a string of food products safe for human consumption will be able to be donated. It is about the food products which lost their commercial look because of the deterioration of the secondary packing, the products which do not comprise the specifications of the producer as to the variations of colour, dimension or shape, the products with errors of labelling, as well as in the conditions of existence of a surplus of food products scheduled for a certain season of vacation or specific holidays.    

The draft regards a string of completions of the Fiscal Code. Thus, the economic operator due to donate food products will benefit from the same facilities and fiscal deductions as in the case of residua, waste and natural perishability. The deduction of the food products transferred through donation by operators from the food sector will be within the limits annually approved by the heads of the institutions.      

The initiative’s authors say that, although there is normative framework regulating the donation of food products in Moldova since 2022, the Law does not work at the moment, for certain reasons. ‘’No transfer of food products through donation on behalf of economic operators from the agro-food sector has been managed to be made so far,’’ say the authors of the legislative initiative – a group of lawmakers of the Action and Solidarity Party (PAS).   

Estimations show that about 20 per cent of all food products are lost or is wasted in the European Union and the costs related are estimated at about 143 billion euros. In Moldova, there is statistics data of prodigality of products. Yet, reports by the State Fiscal Service for 2022 show that over 800 economic agents set aside losses and residua worth 1.4 billion lei. At the same time, on average, a resident of Moldova annually throws to waste about 76 kg of food.